


Further Adventures in the Comic Book Store

by imkerfuffled



Series: Lucia Castillo, Helper of Superheroes [6]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie), F/M, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2018-05-07 07:58:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5449223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imkerfuffled/pseuds/imkerfuffled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spring Break has just begun for Lucia, Julie, and Adrian, and they've decided to take another trip to the comic book  store.</p><p>Ch1: Adrian acts sneaky, and the gang meets someone unexpected at the comic store.<br/>Ch2: Tensions rise over the proposed Registration Act.<br/>Ch3: A certain secret director of SHIELD makes his inevitable appearance.<br/>Ch4: Mysteries are investigated, and revelations are had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not Mr. McJerkface

**Author's Note:**

> And now we take a trip into ~the future~  
> Well, technically, [A Trip to the Comic Convention](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5299271) was in the future too, but less obviously. That was set in February 2016, and this one is a month later in March.

“Hey, Lu, Julie, wanna go to the comic book store?”

This kind of question seemed instantly suspicious. Lucia—for all her excitement over Adrian’s newly rediscovered geekiness—still couldn’t get used to him saying things like that unironically, without any snide remarks thrown into the mix, and her first reaction was to look up and shoot him a wary glance.

“Why?” she asked. Both she and Julie had been holed up in Lucia’s bedroom for more or less the entire day, messing around on their separate electronics and being generally antisocial. Julie lay flat on her back with her massive, dark curls spilling out in a halo around her head. She was holding her DS up above her face and scowling as her character ran into yet another wild Pokémon, while Lucia was using Julie’s stomach as a desk to look up next week’s movie theater schedules on her purple, no-longer-bedazzled-because-the-rhinestones-all-fell-off laptop.

Adrian shrugged and swung Lucia’s open door around with his foot. “I don’t know. Maybe I just felt like going to the comic book store and wanted to see if you guys felt like coming along? You know, like a nice big brother does.”

“You get really defensive when you’re hiding something,” Julie said cheerfully without ever glancing away from her battle.

“I’m not hiding anything; Lu was glaring at me!” Adrian insisted, “Jeez, do you wanna go with me or not?”

The two girls exchanged a glance, and Julie shrugged in acceptance. “Sure thing,” Lucia said, depositing her laptop on the floor and hopping up immediately.

“I’ll bend the rules for comic books,” Julie said as she, still keeping her eyes on her DS, rolled less energetically onto her front and stood up. “Besides, I need more excuses to avoid my parents on the trip. _Oops_ , did I say that? I meant reading material. I need more reading material.” Julie was of the mind that school holidays such as spring break should be spent lazing at home or (if at all possible) at Lucia’s house, and any leaving of said houses should be done only if absolutely necessary. Unsurprisingly, this attitude was met with resistance from her parents, who liked to think of their spring vacations as invaluable family bonding times. (“Yeah, because _more_ forced exposure to each other is exactly what my family needs,” Julie frequently snarked, “If they make one more rude joke about my ‘beach body’ I swear I’ll spit on the Law of Conservation of Mass and turn into another Hulk.”) Lucia, on the other hand, believed any moment not spent taking full advantage of the lack of school was a moment wasted, which over the years had become a source of friendly, if fierce, antagonism. This year they’d both agreed to swap on the days before Julie had to leave; one day they would follow Julie’s rules, and the next they would follow Lucia’s. Today was Julie’s turn.

“Great!” Adrian slapped the edge of the door and swung back behind it, saying as he did so, “Bring your own cash; I’m not paying for you.”

Lucia and Julie quickly gathered up their things, including Lucia’s book bag, keychain and the money from their most recent illegal baked goods sale, which had lately branched out into selling cake pops as well. With a quick heads up to their mom (and considering how the Castillos had practically raised Julie for years, she counted as one of ‘theirs' too) that they’d be gone for a few hours, they left the apartment and walked three blocks to the nearest subway station, before boarding a northbound train.

As usual where Lucia was involved, they stood out somewhat. Besides being some of the youngest people on the subway (Lucia especially looked young, while Julie managed to consistently pass as sixteen, much to Lucia’s annoyance), Lucia was in her ever-present pigtails and the black jacket with the big, red hourglass on the back, and in spirit of the season, Julie’s knit beanie was a cheery yellow today. By contrast, Adrian nearly faded into the background as he sat in his seat texting someone, completely oblivious to his surroundings. He didn’t even notice the young bottle-blonde sneaking glances in his general direction, though Lucia and Julie did and couldn’t stop snickering about it. The girl shot a wink at Julie, and Lucia burst out laughing as she realized who the girl had actually been staring at. Julie sat in stunned silence for a moment before returning the wink with a small smile and a wave.

At the next stop shortly afterwards, Adrian stood up to exit the train, and Lucia had to tug at his jacket sleeve to try to get him to sit back down.

“Wrong stop, remember?” she said, “We got kicked out of this one for annoying Mr. McJerkface Cashier.”

“The whole shooting him with an arrow thing might have had something to do with that, too,” Julie said. A few seats down, the blond girl who’d flirted with her looked somewhat alarmed and turned to face the window.

“Nope,” Adrian grinned, breaking free of Lucia’s grip, “Trust me, you’re not gonna get kicked out this time.”

“Yeah no, this is even his shift, so…” Lucia glanced down at her watch to double check, but when she looked up Adrian had already stepped off the train and started walking toward the turnstiles, forcing the girls to follow him before the doors slid shut. Despite repeated pleading, Adrian refused to explain himself all the way out of the subway and down the two streets to the comic book store. Once they entered it, however, his reason became obvious.

The scene that greeted them when she pushed open the door was one Lucia knew very well, and yet, at the same time, different. Everything was still arranged the way it had been for her last visit (though she noticed the knockoff Iron Man novels had been replaced with Captain America ones of the same strain), and a quick glance told her the quantity of Black Widow and Hawkeye products hadn’t changed. But instead of Deadpool hovering near the checkout counter, there was a tiny old lady struggling to buy comics for her grandchildren. And instead of a stocky, dirty-blond haired boy helping her from behind the counter, there was a girl about Adrian’s age, thin and lanky, with her red-streaked hair pulled up into a bun, and her thick-framed glasses pushed up onto her forehead, while she tried to read a tiny coupon the old lady had given her.

As soon as the door jingled their arrival, the girl looked up, squinting a little without her glasses, and locked eyes with Adrian. She broke out into a wide grin and waved.

Lucia could feel the pieces clicking into place in her brain.

Adrian smiled back with that peculiar glint in his eyes that Lucia knew was an indicator of nerves. After a second where both teenagers glanced from each other to the old lady at the counter and back, Adrian pointed to the lady and gestured off toward the comics section, mouthing, “ _We’ll just go over here…”_ as he did. The girl nodded, still smiling, and turned her attention back to her customer.

Lucia stared at her with her jaw hanging open all through Adrian guiding her and Julie into the Captain America section.

“Well, that _definitely_ wasn’t Mr. McJerkface,” Julie said, glancing from Adrian to the cashier, with the gears in her head whirring at full speed.

“That. Was. _Jackie!”_ Lucia squealed. In an instant, her stunned expression changed to one of almost criminal delight. “It _was,_ wasn’t it? Oh my gosh, your _girlfriend_ _works_ _here_!”

“She’s not my—” Adrian protested, but Julie cut him off.

“Wait, _that_ was Jackie?” she said, craning her neck over the shelves to catch another glimpse of her, “No _way!”_

“Yeah, but she’s not—”

“ _That’s_ why you were acting all shady at home!” Lucia cried, her voice creeping up in volume, “I knew you were up to something!”

Adrian, as the only one of them tall enough to see over the tops of the shelves without standing on tiptoe, could see more of their fellow customers turning to stare at them with each new exclamation of Lucia’s. Even Jackie kept glancing at them, fighting to keep the amused grin from sneaking across her face, and Adrian could feel his face turning bright red. “Could you shout a little louder?” he hissed at Lucia, “I think a few people in California didn’t hear you.”

In response, Lucia started singing, quietly, “ _Adrian and Jackie, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-”_ Adrian shoved a nearby comic featuring Black Widow on the cover in her face, and she quickly shut up.

Meanwhile, Julie seemed to have disappeared, which was alarming enough that it made Adrian turn his back on Lucia for a second, long enough for her to jump up and wave enthusiastically at Jackie over the shelf. Julie had taken advantage of Adrian’s distraction to slip out of the aisle and make her way to the checkout, where she leaned up against the counter next to the old lady.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hello, dear,” the old lady said distractedly, digging around in her massive, Mary Poppins-style purse.

Julie turned to Jackie, who was waiting slightly impatiently behind the counter for the old lady to find her wallet. “So, you’re the girl who managed to break the anti-nerd curse on Adrian,” she said.

“That’s me,” Jackie said with a smile, “You must be… Julie, right?”

“Yup,” Julie nodded, “What’s the secret?”

Jackie gave her a confused look, while she helped the old lady finally finish checking out.

“Lucia and I tried for years to get him to stop denying his nerdyness, and then you managed to do it within a day of meeting him,” Julie said, “So what’s the secret?”

Before Jackie could respond, Adrian came sprinting up to the counter, dodging around a bookshelf and the little old lady as toddled to the door. He skidded to a stop right in front of Julie and flashed a quick smile at Jackie before leveling Julie with one of the more sickeningly insincere variety. Julie responded in kind.

“Hi, Jackie,” he said.

“Hi, Adrian,” Jackie said.

“What was she doing?” he asked.

“Nothing,” both Jackie and Julie said at the same time. They turned to look at each other and, still in sync, started grinning. Lucia, who had watched everything from nearby the comic book shelves, walked over to join them, giggling uncontrollably. Adrian decided it was definitely a mistake to bring the two of them here.

“I can’t _believe_ you work here!” Lucia said to Jackie, once she regained control of her voice, “We used to come here all the time, what if we met you earlier and then you and Adrian got together at the con and oh my gosh it’s meant to be!” As she babbled, her eyes lit up brighter and brighter, until she started bouncing on her toes in excitement, and Adrian’s cheeks turned redder than he thought any human being should be capable of becoming. Jackie snuck him a glance that was two parts alarm, two parts amusement, and one part something else that Lucia couldn’t identify.

“ _I am so, so sorry,”_ Adrian mouthed.

“Sorry to burst your rom-com bubble,” Jackie told Lucia, “But that’s not how it happened.

* * *

 

 **Two Weeks Previously: a text conversation between Jackie and Adrian, including the contact names saved in their phones, because these two are very clearly Talking.**  

 

Bae: ugh i just got fired

Nerd Boy: shit why??? D:

Bae: pissed off middle aged mom named deborah. complained to manager. no joke.

Nerd Boy: that’s terrible and also hilarious at the same time. What happened?

Bae: She kept being a dick to her 5 yr old son about wanting to buy F4 stuff. bc apparently having a girl on the team means he’ll become Sexually Corrupted and discover the Evils of Masturbation. HER 5 YEAR OLD SON

Nerd Boy: ew gross deborah. I want to sling backhanded insults with her at a pta meeting (lol at first I thought f4 meant fallout 4)

Bae: lmao she ended up making him get iron man (lol nerd)

Nerd Boy: this would be the iron man that’s p much contractually required to show tony stark naked every few issues?

Bae: is there any other kind of iron man comic? no joke I wouldn’t be surprised if stark did include that in his contract

Nerd Boy: lol that kid’s not discovering girls he’s discovering Being Attracted to Men

Bae: ikr. Hot damn. Anyway i think i legit said fight me deborah at some point and i regret nothing

Nerd Boy: ilu

Bae: I know

Nerd Boy: lol

Nerd Boy: wait what are you gonna do about the job?

Bae: idk yet. I’m looking into retail stuff but like. i rly don’t want to do that?????? So idk part of me just wants to laze around and not get another job but another part of me is like ho ur off to college nxt yr u need the fucking money

Bae: I might apply at this little boosktore that’s hiring right now. Or there’s a library right across the street from it that I like and probably won’t make me want to stab a bitch

Nerd Boy: wait… bookstore across from a library????

Bae: yeah ik its p weird

Nerd Boy: no. no wait. where is that

Bae: um… idk like northish brooklyn

Nerd Boy: HOLY SHIT THINK I KNOW THAT PLACE IS IT IN FORT GREENE???????????

Bae: SHIT NO WAY YES IT IS HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT

Nerd Boy: OH MY GOD WE LIVE RIGHT NEAR EACH OTHER I’M IN BED STUY

Bae: OH MY GOD

Nerd Boy: HOW THE FUCK DID WE NOT KNOW THIS

Bae: IDK OMG WE SHOULD MEET UP

Nerd Boy: FUCK YEAH shit I’ve got like three major projects due I can’t HOW ABOUT SOMETIME OVER SPRING BREAK

Bae: FUCK YEAH IM NOT GOING ANYWHERE

Nerd Boy: wait holy shit you said you needed a job dO YOU STILL WANT TO WORK IN A COMIC STORE????

Bae: YES OMG WHERE

Nerd Boy: OK YOU KNOW THE SUBWAY AT UNION AV WELL GO TWO BLOCKS SOUTH FROM THERE AND ITS RIGHT ON THE CORNER ITS HIRING RIGHT NOW I GO THERE ALL THE TIME

Bae: YES! THANK YOU OKAY I AM GOING NOW I NEED MONEY

Bae: OH MY GOD WE LIVE BY EACH OTHER

Bae: I CANT THIS IS SO GREAT

* * *

 

**Two Weeks Later: No longer including the contact names saved in their phones, because that would be weird.**

 

“They hired me pretty much on the spot,” Jackie said, with only a hint of pride, “I think it was a vibe thing.” Julie nodded knowingly, but Adrian’s forehead crinkled up in confusion, and Lucia was too excited to do anything other than grin. “Apparently, I’ve got a nerd punk thing going on that they want to take advantage of.”

“Is that even a thing?” Adrian said, giving her a lopsided smile that set Lucia off in another fit of muffled dinosaur noises—muffled because she was trying to shove her entire fist into her mouth.

Jackie shrugged, “It’s an ‘I could work at Hot Topic if I wanted, but also wouldn’t look out of place in a library’ thing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: CIVIL WAR! Well, civil argument about the registration act, but basically CIVIL WAR!


	2. Civil Argument

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First: Look what [Lymmel](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5454299) made me! Isn't Lucia adorable here?
> 
> Thanks for stefaniegk for your help on this chapter!
> 
> This is basically me running wild with the whole Civil War 'whose side are you on' thing. It's not quite an endorsement of either side, and by the end there it kinda got outta hand, but I like it anyway. BABIES I LOVE YOU ALL STOP FIGHTING STEVE TONY BUCKY NOOO... 
> 
> Ahem. The last half of this was written at two in the morning, and all my editing was done on ~2.5 hours of sleep, so if anything sounds weird or just doesn't work, please tell me. Also, if I've made any mistakes regarding continuity with aos, tell me that too. (lol I'll probably have to rework the entire thing once cw comes out, but for now... enjoy!)

Eventually, after Lucia calmed down to acceptable-to-be-seen-in-public levels (after many embarrassed glares and elbow jabs from her brother) and Adrian formally introduced everyone, the conversation flowed naturally into current events.

“Hey, have you seen that petition going around the internet?” Jackie asked, “Calling for superheroes to be held accountable for things?”

Lucia immediately started groaning again, though this time for a different reason. “Holy smokes, I _hate_ that thing.”

“Why though?” Jackie looked startled, “It sounds kinda like common sense to me.”

“Yeah, but have you _read_ some of that stuff they’re proposing?” Lucia said, “It all feels like a thinly-veiled excuse to unmask everyone.”

Jackie bobbed her head from side to side, considering it. “But if the government doesn’t publicize their identities, and only gives them out on a need to know basis…”

“It’ll still get out,” Lucia said, “The next time some do-gooder cop with a subscription to the Bugle puts out a warranty on Spiderman, someone’ll leak it to the press, no matter what the punishment might be.”

“Plus…” Adrian added, looking vaguely uncomfortable about disagreeing with Jackie, “I mean, the last time superheroes trusted any sort of government organization, it turned out to be Hydra.”

“That’s true,” Jackie acknowledged, “I was thinking it would need all sorts of firewalls and security measures to keep out threats, but when you factor in fanatic politicians…”

“Plus all the energy-based villains who could get around the firewalls,” Lucia added.

“And when you add mutants and Inhumans into the mix, it starts to look eerily like the first stages of the Holocaust,” Jackie sighed, “Yeah, that’s my biggest problem with what they’re proposing; it’s too easy for people like those Watchdogs to hijack it.”

“They’re not _hijacking_ anything. You can’t hijack something you created,” Lucia loudly insisted, attracting the attention of the surrounding customers again, “This whole registration BS is only popular because of all the deep rooted anti-Inhuman prejudice in this country. I mean, holy _crud,_ Donald Drumpf even endorsed it! Doesn’t that give you some indication of what the people behind it are like?” Lucia took a deep breath to continue, saw Jackie and Adrian’s sheepish expressions, and turned to Julie. “Come on, help me out here!”

There was a pause as everyone waited for Julie to launch into one of her iconic speeches, but instead… Instead, she stared down at her laces, her eyes hidden behind her corkscrew curls.

“Julie!” Lucia said, almost pleading, “Come on, what are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” Julie whispered, still not daring to look her friend in the eyes, “I don’t know who’s right.”

“What?” Lucia could do nothing but stare at her, openmouthed, frozen. She had been so certain that Julie would back her up, just as they had always done for each other for longer than she could remember, that she hadn’t even considered the alternative. Julie had often joked that whatever her parents were against (Inhumans, for example), that’s what she believed in. Of course, the reality was more complicated than that, since her parents tended to be over controlling, manipulative bigots and all-around awful human beings. Julie always, without fail, knew exactly what to say to get her point across, and she'd developed this skill out of necessity, to in order to occasionally get through to her parents. But for her to be unsure about something like this…

“I think,” Julie said, even softer now, “I think I’m with Jackie on this one.”

“No,” Lucia whispered. Then, stronger, “No, why? Why on Earth are you—this thing—superhero registration goes against everything you stand for! Why?” By the end, her voice had pitched up and her eyes had widened again, not in excitement, but in a confused, upset plea. Between the two of them, Adrian and Jackie exchanged a self-conscious glance, invisible to Lucia and Julie.

“I know that!” Julie said. Finally, she raised her head to meet Lucia’s defiant gaze with her own. “I agree with everything you’re saying; it’s rooted in Inhuman prejudice, it would put superheroes and their families at an even greater risk for hate crimes and vengeful supervillains, it sounds exactly like something Drumpf could have come up with himself, I keep comparing it to the panic after 9/11 and the Patriot Act, and I _hate it_ because I actually _agree_ with parts of it. We _do_ need some kind of system to keep superheroes in check—”

“No we don’t!”

“Yes, we do,” Julie insisted, some of her normal confidence creeping back into her voice with every word she spoke, “Today’s world would be completely unrecognizable to people living just a few decades ago, when heroes could run around doing whatever they liked without consequence. This isn’t World War II anymore, the world isn’t black and white, and like it or not, Captain America isn’t the be all end all of superheroes, so we have to stop acting like the same principles that we operated by then are still applicable in today’s society. Superheroes are more prevalent today than they ever have been in human history, and they’re more fallible as well. We _cannot_ allow them to continue to live above the law, and _they must be held accountable for their actions._ ”

Lucia’s expression had changed only to one of stubborn frustration, and she had crossed her arms over her chest, while Adrian--and especially Jackie, who had never witnessed one of Julie’s speeches before--could do nothing but gape at her. As she fell back in her stride, her eyes positively glowed with a righteous glee that always took her opponents (because ‘victims’ wasn’t the right word) by storm when they first encountered it. Lucia always had the impression that Julie was never happier than when she had something to argue for, and though she rarely felt that intense combination of triumph and fury trained on herself, she had heard it enough times to be unimpressed. Others, however, had not, and a few of those customers who had turned their heads at Lucia’s shouts now drifted closer to the checkout counter with no intention of buying anything.

“Look at these past few years alone,” Julie continued, “Ever since SHIELD fell, the entire superhero world has been in shambles. With the absence of any governing body capable of keeping super-powered threats in check, powered crime rates have skyrocketed beyond the abilities of local vigilantes like Daredevil to control, and even the legitimate ‘good guys’ are becoming unmanageable. We’ve been told almost nothing about the events that led to the Battle of Sokovia, or even about the battle itself, and that alone is enough to make me concerned. But what people have been able to piece together from the few facts the new Avengers and Iron Man have given us, Ultron and all his destruction seem to have been the result of the Avengers themselves, most likely Iron Man and Bruce Banner—Banner who, I’ll remind you, is now missing and presumed dead by most of the world.” Julie took a deep breath and continued in a more somber tone, “What occurred in Sokovia and Wakanda earlier this year was a horrific tragedy, and to find that our so-called heroes were in part responsible for it? It’s unacceptable. We cannot allow their arrogance and their disregard of the rules to endanger any more lives. We _need_ a system that requires people like Iron Man to be brought to justice for their hand in perpetrating these crimes.”

At some point, she had transitioned from addressing Lucia alone, to addressing the growing crowd of people gathering around their group. Some looked skeptical, a few looked outright hostile, but most stood spellbound by this young girl in a beanie cap and a ‘May the Fourth’ t-shirt as she spun her words into something greater than mere sounds. Now she lifted her arms slightly, looking around at the half dozen or so people listening, and said, “But this proposed registration is _not_ that system. We need something that cannot be exploited by bigots with vendettas, and doesn’t violate the privacy of those superheroes who choose to keep their identity hidden in order to protect their loved ones from being targeted. We need a system that doesn’t persecute heroes who risk their lives to help the world on their own terms, like Daredevil, and instead punishes those who cross the line between superhero and villain. We need…”

Here, she took another deep breath and continued, grinning now from ear to ear with her vision of the future. “We need something like SHIELD, but reimagined to be more like Peggy Carter’s original plans for it. Instead of the mysterious, secretive agency that allowed for corruption and fanaticism to infect its ranks, we need a transparent, democratically run organization, separate from any government but still in constant communication with all of them. Its primary purpose must be to correct common misconceptions and prejudices about Inhumans and superheroes as a whole, and to inform the public of the truth, to ensure justice in the case of another tragedy like Sokovia. It needs to have a court system built into it, to try supervillains and heroes alike that the regular national courts aren’t equipped to handle, and it needs its own high profile prisons as well, for the same reason. If the accused party is found guilty, then and only then should they be forced to reveal their true identity, and for everyone else registration should be purely voluntary, and should never act as a drafting measure, like I’ve seen it been suggested. It needs to be… like the broader, judicial version of the X-Men: fighting for rights and equality, but at the same time facing the threats that others cannot and should not take on. In the case of the X-Men, those are mutant threats; in the case of this new SHIELD, they would be super-powered criminal justice cases.

“We cannot let all this fear, all this terror that’s been brewing ever since the Chitauri attack turned the world on its head… We cannot let that give us the justification to strip people of their human—or, in this new age, possibly alien—rights, like we did in the wake of 9/11. We can’t let history repeat itself again and again in an endless cycle. We must turn it into something constructive, something that shines hope on a better tomorrow.”

She finished her speech with a triumphant smile as she glanced around at everyone listening, about ten or eleven people in all. As she spun her gaze around, her smile faltered somewhat as she came to Lucia, but her friend grinned right back at her.

“Damn,” Jackie whispered, barely loud enough for Adrian to hear across the counter, “That girl is gonna rule the world one day.”

“Told you,” Adrian whispered back.

Before Lucia or Julie could say anything to each other, a quiet clapping sound came from the back of the group. They both turned in its direction, and from where he was hidden behind two tall teenagers, a man stepped out. He wore a nondescript suit and had the kind of face that seemed familiar yet completely forgettable. If not for the odd glove that he wore only on one hand, Lucia could have sworn she knew him from somewhere.

“Bravo,” he said, looking plainly impressed, “Have you ever considered running for office when you’re older?”

Julie reached up to tug on one of her curls and glanced down at her feet. “I don’t really know what I want to do yet,” she admitted, while at the same time Jackie said, “Phil! I didn’t see you there!”

The man smiled pleasantly at her, saying to Julie, “You should think about it. From what I just heard, you’re a natural.”

“Phil, this is Julie, and that’s Adrian and Lucia over here,” Jackie introduced them. Phil held out an arm—the right one, without the glove—for handshakes, and they took it. “Guys, this is Phil Coulson.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Coulson!


	3. Not-So-Bland Bureaucrat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [TV show announcer voice]: Previously on _Further Adventures in the Comic Book Store_ :
> 
> _Before Lucia or Julie could say anything to each other, a quiet clapping sound came from the back of the group. They both turned in its direction, and from where he was hidden behind two tall teenagers, a man stepped out. He wore a nondescript suit and had the kind of face that seemed familiar yet completely forgettable. If not for the odd glove that he wore only on one hand, Lucia could have sworn she knew him from somewhere._
> 
> _“Bravo,” he said, looking plainly impressed, “Have you ever considered running for office when you’re older?”_
> 
> _Julie reached up to tug on one of her curls and glanced down at her feet. “I don’t really know what I want to do yet,” she admitted, while at the same time Jackie said, “Phil! I didn’t see you there!”_
> 
> _The man smiled pleasantly at her, saying to Julie, “You should think about it. From what I just heard, you’re a natural.”_
> 
> _“Phil, this is Julie, and that’s Adrian and Lucia over here,” Jackie introduced them. Phil held out an arm—the right one, without the glove—for handshakes, and they took it. “Guys, this is Phil Coulson.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Shows up six months late with an old meme and a new chapter*
> 
> Also, as I say in the new second chapter of [The Man in the Suit](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5520884/chapters/12745916), I inevitably end up collecting songs for anything I stick with long enough, so I figured, what the hell, [I might as well stick them in a playlist.](http://8tracks.com/imkerfuffled/lucia) So, like, go check it out.

Everything about Phil Coulson was utterly… average. Boring. If you were to go out onto the streets of New York and pick out a random businessman from the sea of commuters, that would be Phil Coulson: bland suit, bland haircut, bland aura of bureaucratic paperwork hovering around him. He only needed a briefcase and a Styrofoam cup of sludge-coffee to complete the image, to replace the handful of Captain America comics in his hands.

And yet… Lucia couldn’t shake the feeling she was missing something.

“He bought a couple of things in here the other day, and we got to chatting,” Jackie was explaining to Adrian and Julie, while the others surrounding the checkout counter began to disperse. “He’s an even bigger Cap fan than you, Adrian.”

Adrian looked the man up and down, sizing him up. “I’m pretty hard to beat,” he said, which was a nicer way of saying, “This guy? Not a chance.”

Maybe that was it. Phil Coulson looked like the sort of man who could be invisible in nearly any situation. He could blend into any scene. Perhaps it was for just that reason that Lucia thought she recognized him; as a frequent traverser of the streets of New York, she must have seen thousands of men just like him.

Except…

He smiled a bland, friendly smile at Adrian and said, “You might be surprised.”

Except the sort of bland persona he projected wasn’t the sort of person who would hang out in a dingy comic book store and chat with the cashier. And he certainly wasn’t the sort of person to make a big enough impression on said cashier that she would remember his name the next time he came in.

And, of course, there was the matter of the single, black glove on his left hand.

“So, I take it this is the friend you told me about,” Phil said to Jackie, who nodded cheerfully.

“You, uh, you were talking about me?” Adrian asked, with the worst air of nonchalance Lucia had ever seen. She snickered, then went back to scrutinizing Phil.

It wasn’t just this guy’s normalcy that threw her off. He _looked_ familiar, somehow. Lucia could swear she’d seen him before, or at least heard his name.

“That really was an excellent speech,” Phil was telling Julie. This time his bland smile also looked bemused and impressed. “Did you come up with that on the spot?”

Julie shrugged self-consciously. “Yeah, a lot of it. I mean, the ideas I’ve been mulling over for a while, but most of the wording just came to me.”

“Well, that’s quite a talent you’ve got,” Phil said, “I wasn’t kidding about going into politics, you know. You could make a killing as a speechwriter.”

“Thanks.” Julie immediately reached up and began tugging on her curls again. Lucia grinned at her, knowing how inexplicably shy she could be about people taking special notice of this strange ability of hers. All her tough, outward self-assurance melted the instant anyone complimented her on something she really cared about.

Lucia elbowed her in the side. “I keep trying to get her to join the debate team next year.”

Julie shrugged the shrug of someone who didn’t know how to respond, but also didn’t want anyone to know she didn’t know how to respond.

Behind them, Adrian leaned over the counter and whispered to Jackie, “They just got the class listing last week, and so far, Lu’s brought it up exactly seventy-six times. I’ve counted.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me,” Jackie whispered back.

“If I have to hear the words ‘debate team’ one more time, I will personally shove that flyer she keeps waving around down her throat.”

And if Lucia had heard her brother say that, she would have shoved that same flyer—which currently resided in a much wrinkled state in her back pocket—down Adrian’s throat. Or, more likely, stabbed him with something mildly sharp and painful, as she frequently did with people who annoyed her. This was a habit her parents had only recently become aware of, and one they desperately hoped to dissuade her of before she started high school.

But Lucia did not hear Adrian, because she was too busy studying the enigma that was Phil Coulson. Specifically, she was studying his gloved hand.

It looked… odd, and Lucia couldn’t quite put her finger on why.

(She mentally gave herself a high-five for that pun.)

It looked like the anatomical equivalent of a technologically incompetent adult trying to connect with teenagers through mangled chat-speak, or one of those online robots that people can have conversations with, or hyper-realistic video game graphics: accurate enough to be recognizable, but with just enough artificiality to feel profoundly… odd.

Meanwhile, Phil was regarding Julie with an expression that was also profoundly odd. “How old are you, Julie?”

“I’m fourteen,” Julie said. Then her eyes narrowed. “Why?” Due to her height and appearance (not to mention that unexplainable aura she gave off of being older), she had met more than one man who seemed perfectly normal and polite until… well, until they weren’t. Lucia didn’t have to deal with any of that, which she claimed was the sole advantage of not having much in the way of boobs yet.

Thankfully, Phil didn’t appear to be that kind of man. “I’m just impressed, that’s all. Not many people your age have such a nuanced understanding of the matter. Not many _adults_ do, for that matter.”

Julie smiled and thanked him again, beginning to regain her composure, but the sideways glance she shot Lucia told a different story. To anyone else it would be unnoticeable, but to Lucia it was the rueful look of someone who was used to well-intended, backhanded compliments aimed at her age, and was thoroughly sick of it.

“There aren’t many people in favor of SHIELD either, these days,” Phil said. His eyes held an almost amused glint, which Lucia took note of. It appeared only after Julie gave her the unnoticeable glance.

Whoever Phil Coulson was, he was not a bland bureaucrat.

“And that’s partly for good reason,” Julie said, “No one wants a repeat of what happened with the Helicarriers, and there’s no doubt that SHIELD had to be destroyed the moment Black Widow and Captain America found out about Hydra’s infiltration. But I wasn’t saying we should bring back the parts of SHIELD that _weren’t_ Hydra, because how do you determine which parts those are? Even people who’ve spent months poring over the leaked files can’t tell for sure. No, it’s probably best for everyone if SHIELD stays dead.”

“Yes, but… fair enough.” Phil looked like he wanted to say something else, but stopped himself. “You said it was _partly_ for good reason, though. What’s the other part?”

This was a test of some sort, and Julie, and Lucia, and Adrian, and Jackie all knew it. They just couldn’t tell what it was testing for.

“Fear,” Julie said plainly, “Now don’t get me wrong, fear’s good. Fear’s healthy. But this kind of fear…” She shook her head, completely at ease now that the topic had shifted to something she was an authority on. “I’m trying to think of a way to say this without sounding like Yoda.”

Phil grinned a grin that suddenly didn’t look so bland. “There’s no need for that. Yoda’s a pretty smart guy.”

“Fear leads to anger,” Lucia quoted, in an impression that was only vaguely recognizable as Yoda, as opposed to an eighty-year-old smoker with multiple lung diseases.

“And anger to hate, and hate to suffering,” Julie continued, “And then you get groups like these Watchdogs, spewing Nazi rhetoric about Inhumans and advocating the murders of anyone with an Inhuman gene. Or a legitimate, government funded organization like the ATCU, with less transparency than the CIA, snatching people off the streets, never to be seen again. All in the name of safety.”

“I’m sure the ATCU believed—believe they’re doing the right thing, even if other people may not approve of their methods,” Phil said.

“See, but that’s the problem,” said Julie. Just like when she gave her speech, as her confidence grew, so did her energy, until she began punctuating her points with hand gestures. “People _do_ approve of it, because they’re scared. The same thing happened to produce the Patriot Act. But I don’t like to think of a world where ‘doing the right thing’ involves Orwellian-inspired kidnappings.”

“That’s very true.”

“And while there _are_ plenty of people who oppose these things, the majority of them are too young for policy-makers to really care, except to occasionally make an awkward attempt at pandering to them come election time,” Julie said. Lucia snickered, thinking of some of her friend’s scathing comments that always seemed to surface whenever the presidential campaign showed on TV.

“Ah yes, the younger generation. The favorite scapegoat for all us old folks to dump our superiority complexes on” Phil said, with an ironic twinkle in his eye that was the exact opposite of bland. Julie grinned, and Lucia could pinpoint that as the exact moment Julie decided she liked him. “You sound a lot like an employee of mine. I think you’d like her. You both have similar spirit.”

Now completely past her earlier insecurity—or simply masking it better—Julie beamed at the compliment.

Lucia opened her mouth to cheekily ask if this employee had ever been on a debate team in high school, but ditched the comment at the last minute in favor of overanalyzing Phil’s. On the surface, it seemed to verify her earlier assumption about him being a bland bureaucrat, since bland bureaucrats seemed to have a surplus of employees to compare people to. But—and here Lucia let her imagination run wild—it could also be a ruse to keep them from suspecting the truth. He could secretly be James Bond, or Jason Bourne, or whoever the other spies on TV were. Or he was actually from the ATCU itself, here to make sure none of the cosplayers who sometimes came in here were actually aliens in disguise. Or maybe _he_ was the alien, and that glove of his hid glowing scales that could kill someone with a touch, or else he could use the glove like the Black Widow used her electric cuffs.

Or… he really was just a less-than-averagely-bland bureaucrat, but Lucia couldn’t have nearly as much fun imagining that.

Whoever he was, it looked like Lucia wouldn’t have much longer to theorize. He reached past Julie’s head to hand his purchases to Jackie, saying, “Well, I’d love to stay and talk some more, but unfortunately I have to get back to work. Do you three come here often?” He directed this last part at Julie, Lucia, and Adrian, who was leaning over the counter, talking quietly with Jackie. Adrian jumped and banged his elbow against the edge of the cash register.

“Oh, um…” he said, hissing slightly in pain and rubbing his elbow.

“Now that the old cashier doesn’t work here anymore—” Julie began, only to be interrupted by Lucia.

“And the new one is Adrian’s _girlfriend!”_ She drew out the last word as long as she dared. Adrian instantly turned bright red and suddenly realized the not-quite-white, water-stained ceiling was the most interesting thing in the world, while Jackie became incredibly interested in scanning Phil’s last Captain America comic.

“—we’ll definitely come back,” Julie finished.

“Ah yes, I believe I met the young man you’re talking about, er, once or twice,” Phil said. Across the counter, Jackie’s eyes went very wide and then very narrow, and Lucia decided to figure out what that was about later.

“Yeah, he kind of kicked us out of the store once. Well, twice, in Lucia’s case. So we’ve avoided this place since then,” Julie said.

Phil gave Lucia an inquisitive look, “This sounds like a story I want to hear.”

Lucia flipped a pouch on her book bag open and closed a couple times. “I _may_ have shot at him with one of the foam arrows from my Halloween costume,” she said, still fiddling with the flap, “But only because he was being a jerkface!” Lucia didn’t look up to see Phil's reaction, but out of the corner of her eye she could see Adrian rolling his eyes and Jackie silently laughing.

“Hang on,” Phil said, “Was that a Blackhawk Halloween costume?”

Lucia’s head snapped up, and her mouth fell open as realization hit her just a second after it hit Phil. “ _You!”_ she shouted, jabbing her finger in the air, “That was _you!_ You’re the guy I ran into!”

Now Adrian was laughing too, and he didn’t do it silently.


	4. The Game is Afoot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mysteries are investigated, and revelations are had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I haven't abandoned little Lucia and Friends! I've just been caught up in so many other things I temporarily forgot about them :'(

Jackie: Adrian why is your sister in here interrogating me about Phil Coulson?

Adrian: ?????

Jackie: She’s asking me all sorts of questions about him

Jackie: I’ve only met the guy twice

* * *

 

Lucia was of the strong opinion that holidays such as spring break were spent most efficiently by packing each and every moment with the maximum amount of fun it could hold. Unfortunately for her, Julie was of the equally strong opinion that each and every moment should be packed with relaxation and avoiding her parents. So they compromised: Saturday they would follow Julie’s rule, and Sunday they would follow Lucia’s before Julie had to leave for her family cruise trip on Monday.

This was a system that had never been willingly broken by either of them since its inception four years ago, until today. Today was Sunday, and Lucia had canceled all their fun-packed plans.

Julie stared at the text message in her hand as she sank slowly onto her bed, almost surprised by how disappointed she felt.

“so sorry somthing came up gotta go”

Lucia gave no explanation—not even punctuation. Coming from the girl who sometimes used semicolons alongside textspeak in her messages, this was undeniably strange.

She must really be in a hurry, doing whatever it was that was so important. Without Julie.

Julie shook her head to clear it of that train of thought. Complain though she might, she always loved these crazy outings Lucia planned for them, just as, she was sure, Lucia loved winding down with Julie on the days they followed her plan.

So why did she cancel?

On impulse, Julie pulled up the call screen and typed in Lucia’s number—one of three she knew from memory. She hit call. It rang once, twice, and went through.

“Yeah?” Lucia said on the other end, in lieu of a proper greeting. She sounded a little sheepish.

Julie suddenly felt ridiculous for calling her.

“Er, what’s up?” she said, flopping back onto her bed in frustration and mentally calling herself several names that would probably get her grounded if she said them out loud.

There was a pause and a sharp intake of breath, which Julie recognized as Lucia’s “I have a secret that I’m dying to tell you” noise (not to be confused with the “I’m about to yell at you” noise, or the “I have the hiccups” noise).

“Remember Phil Coulson?” Lucia blurted out.

“Who?” Julie wrinkled her forehead.

“The guy from the comic book store. Jackie’s friend.”

“Oh.” Julie smiled slightly as she remembered his compliments from the day before. “Yeah, of course. Why?”

“Did anything about him seem weird to you?”

Julie snorted. “Did anything _not_ seem weird, you mean?”

“I know right,” Lucia laughed, and another smile spread across Julie’s lips, “But seriously though, I _know_ I recognize him from somewhere.”

“Yeah, we bumped into him that day we were k-i-c-k-ed from the store, remember?” Julie said, spelling it out in case one of her parents was listening through the door. It wouldn’t deter them, but it made Julie feel a little better anyway.

“No but I swear I’ve seen his name before,” Lucia insisted, “not just his face. And it was somewhere to do with superheroes too, I know it.”

This time it was Julie’s turn to pause as she tried to make sense of what Lucia was saying. “Are you telling me,” she said in a flash of anger, “that you ditched me just so you could play detective chasing after some old guy we just met yesterday?”

“Er…..”

Julie could only imagine Lucia tugging nervously on one of her pigtails as she chewed on her lip, but she could imagine it vividly. Someone in the background of the call said something indistinct—a woman, but not Lucia’s mother. Julie frowned.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Um… at the comic book store,” Lucia replied.

The voice in the background spoke up, and now Julie recognized it as Jackie’s, “Help, she’s interrogating me!”

“No I’m not, I’m buying comics!”

(Julie and Lucia had both realized on their way home yesterday that, between meeting Jackie and Julie giving her speech, they had all forgotten to look for comic books at the comic book store.)

All of Julie’s anger at Lucia faded away. Try as she might—and she did try, sometimes—Lucia was the one person she could never hold a grudge against, which, incidentally, was one of the things she tried to hold a grudge against Lucia for.

“Are you, perchance, doing both?” she asked with a slight smile. Only a slight one.

Alright, so maybe there was still a _little_ anger left.

In any case, the petulant noise Lucia made in the back of her throat gave her all the answers she needed. She sighed.

“Fine. You want some help?”

“Heck yeah!”

* * *

 

Lucia filled Julie in on all she’d learned from Jackie (“He really scared Mr. McJerkface away?” “That’s what Jackie says.” “Forget the Avengers, that man is a hero.”) on the way home, and no sooner did they enter the apartment than they barricaded themselves in Lucia’s room. No amount of questioning (on Adrian’s part) or bribery of cookies (on Lucia’s dad’s part) could tempt them to unlock the door.

Jackie’s information, while intriguing, did little to uncover the mystery that was Phil Coulson. In fact, it only added to their growing list of questions, and Lucia’s memories weren’t much better. They only revealed a vague recollection of seeing the name in relation to superheroes—maybe the Avengers? Possibly not—with the even vaguer recollection of this having been a couple years back.

So they got to work, alternately scouring the internet for news articles from around that time, trying to remember everything Lucia did/said/might have seen during 2014 (and 2013 and 2015 for a nice margin of error), and groaning on the floor.

Anytime Julie would suggest something like:

“Chances are he’s just a reporter or something, and he wrote an article on the Avengers once.”

Lucia would respond with:

“No, this man is important. I can feel it!”

Julie thought so too, but she was less inclined to put faith in feelings.

They stayed locked in Lucia’s room until late in the afternoon, only emerging finally because the smell of Mrs. Castillo’s cooking had drifted throughout the apartment, but it wasn’t until two weeks later, when Lucia visited the memorial for the Battle of New York for a school project, that she made any progress at all.

There, etched in stone alongside so many others, the name instantly caught her eye.

Phil Coulson. Included in the list of the dead.

Lucia got very little work done on her school project that day.

It was only then that she thought to look through her shoebox of flash drives. Long ago, when the Black Widow dumped all of SHIELD’s secrets on the internet for the whole world to see, Lucia knew what she had to do. She went to the store, bought all the flash drives her piggy bank could handle, and downloaded as many files onto them as could fit. She knew it was only a matter of time before they disappeared from the web, and sure enough, when they did she found a safe way to access the dark web, hunted down everyone who reuploaded SHIELD files there, and downloaded those as well. She didn’t get all the files, of course, or even most, but she got a lot.

The entire thing fit in one big shoebox, which she kept under her bed.

_That_ was where she had seen the name. _That_ was why it was so important. He wasn’t just one of the hundreds of faceless names on the memorial wall; he was an agent of SHIELD.

Agent Coulson.

And when she finally found the files he was referenced in, late at night, hunched over her laptop screen with the blanket forming a tent over her head, it felt like the whole world stopped spinning.

They were two simple files in a folder all by themselves—a folder she had labeled “IMPORTANT.” Both were mission reports: one detailing a confrontation with Thor over Mjolnir, and the other on a surveillance operation involving Tony Stark. And in both, Agent Coulson was listed as the handler of two key agents.

Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff.

Hawkeye and Black Widow.

The man Lucia met at the comic book store was the former handler of Hawkeye and Black Widow.

And he was alive.

Slowly, the world began to turn again.


End file.
